She was 19, beautiful, and painfully shy; he was 45, a major film star, and a craggy-faced boozer. They were paired for her debut film. And, unexpectedly, they fell deeply in love.

Lauren Bacall, with her husky voice and sultry beauty, was cast opposite Humphrey Bogart and his "tough-guy" image in To Have and Have Not (1945). The starlet shined as the impudent, flirtatious foil to Bogart's rapid, caustic delivery. The camera captured an escalating passion between them. Off the set, they spent more and more time together alone. As news of their clandestine romance was leaked to the popular movie magazines, fans rushed to see the movie, making it a box office success. Soon after Bogart was granted a divorce from his third wife, actress Mayo Methot, they were married.

As a fledgling model and stage actress two years earlier, Bacall, born Betty Joan Perske, had appeared on a magazine cover. She was noticed by film director Howard Hawks, who put her under contract. He invested much time grooming her for movie stardom, and refined what publicists called "The Look" -- her provocative, "come-hither" glance upward at the camera. In her 1978 autobiography "By Myself," Bacall wrote: "I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of The Look. I still get the shakes from time to time."

Her unforeseen romance with Bogart in her first major film upset Hawks, as it shattered his dream to mold her image and career, and their friendship was damaged. Bacall and Bogart's "Beauty and the Beast" teaming intrigued the press and public, but their marriage was never given great odds for success. Bogart, well known for his intelligence and thorny candor, could also be violent and offensive when drunk.

However, the media misjudged the woman. Bacall slipped effortlessly into the domestic, submissive role of Mrs. Humphrey Bogart, and became a serene infrastructure for Bogart's fragile ego. She never truly pursued a film career while married to Bogart; she was quite content to be a devoted wife, mother, and homemaker, making an occasional film when the mood suited her. The couple had two children, son Stephen Humphrey (born 1949) and daughter Leslie Howard (born 1952). Bogart thrived professionally during his marriage to Bacall. He won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in The African Queen (1951) and was on the Top Ten Box Office film list eight times during the 1940's and 1950's.

During the notorious blacklisting era in Hollywood, Bogart and Bacall made headlines as they spearheaded, with other prominent film folks, an open protest of the abhorrent "Communist witch hunts" of the 1950's film industry.

The Bogarts hosted numerous drinking parties at their Holmby Hills mansion, and Bacall dubbed the party regulars "The Holmby Hills Rat Pack." Decades later, the "Rat Pack" nickname would be unforgettably linked with Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis, Jr. Bacall and Bogart were one of Hollywood's few genuinely happy married couples until Bogart's tragic death from throat cancer in January 1957.

Some time after Bogart's death, Bacall dated Frank Sinatra and Jason Robards, Jr.; in 1961, she and Robards married. They had one son, Sam, and divorced in 1969. In 1970, she starred on Broadway in Applause, a musical adaptation of the film All About Eve, which earned her a Tony Award and New York Drama Critics Award; she was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Career Achievement in 1992. Through the 1990's, Bacall's acting career flourished.

Truthfully, Bogart and Bacall's four films together are not the very best of Hollywood. But there is a sassy naturalness, a cocky frankness and subtle sexuality in these films so unlike others of their era. Few classic film enthusiasts have tired of the couple's on-screen dynamism and off-screen love affair -- even 50 years later.

Bogart and Bacall's Filmography:

To Have and Have Not (1945)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Dark Passage (1947)
Key Largo (1948)

Author: Vicki McClure Davidson

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